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Arlene Foster argued that she had not used the terms poachers

In politics, as in life, it's easy to be abrasive about someone far away, but rather more difficult to be rude to someone sitting right beside you.

So if you are planning to launch a broadside, it's often convenient to pick a distant target.

On Friday, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness complained about the prime minister's absence from a British-Irish summit safe in the knowledge that Theresa May wasn't about to walk in the door.

Similarly, back in October, First Minister Arlene Foster used her speech to the DUP conference to concentrate her fire on the Irish government, knowing Taoiseach Enda Kenny was unlikely to appear at the back of the hall.

She said political instability in Dublin was driving Mr Kenny's response to Brexit, adding that while the Irish government "seek to take the views of people of Northern Ireland on the issue of Brexit at home, their representatives are sent out around the world to talk down our economy and to attempt to poach our investors".

A couple of weeks after using the Royal Prerogative to appoint a new press secretary, was it really the executive's considered media strategy to reveal important correspondence from Downing Street live on Radio Ulster's Nolan Show?

Having spent the last few days trawling through the numbers in the View's latest survey, I feel safe in assuming that having covered the Good Friday Agreement referendum, the EU referendum and the AV referendum (remember that) I am unlikely, in my tenure as BBC NI Political Editor, to find myself covering a border poll.

(Note to editor - I am not ruling returning from retirement for a bit of punditry, I might need the cash!)

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There was a rise in those who would vote to join the Republic of Ireland since 2013

As Nigel Farage and Theresa Villiers appeared to concede defeat late on Thursday night and sterling climbed on the assumption that Remain had it in the bag, Mark Carruthers, presenting BBC NI's "The View" invited me to call the referendum outcome.

Mindful that, behind me, the counters were still verifying the ballot papers and across the UK not a single area had declared, I declined his offer on the grounds that making a wild guess at such an early stage is a "mug's game"

About Mark

BBC journalist since 1980s. Reporter for Spotlight, Ireland Correspondent covering IRA ceasefire and Good Friday Agreement, United Nations Correspondent in New York, Stormont Political Editor since 2001.

Covered stories in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Israel.

Author of Flash Frames -12 Years Reporting Belfast and co -author of Man of War, Man of Peace: a biography of Gerry Adams

Once worked as a trainee reporter for Indian newspaper "The Hindu".

Educated in Oxford before going to university in Cambridge to study history